


The Rikers in London

by Naraht



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the end of the series, Jonathan and Marina are reunited at a Star Trek convention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rikers in London

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WickedWonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWonder/gifts).



> Written to fill one of your prompts from last year - better late than never, I hope!
> 
> This is loosely based on the happenings at a London Star Trek convention in 2005 but I claim no insight into Jonathan Frakes' internal narrative. All of that is fiction.

Too long. It's been way too long since he's seen any of them. The cast of TNG was always like a family when they were on set together and now that they're spread across the world it feels even more like a family, long-distance telephone calls and snatched reunions.

It's his own fault, he's been way too busy. Most of last year he spent out in LA directing _Thunderbirds_. At the time he thought it was worth it, the first step into a real directing career. "Real" because people never respect _Star Trek_ , they still don't, even after all these years, all of the syndication and all that money for Paramount. But it turns out that they respect a flop even less, and in retrospect he half wonders why he did it. Really he had more fun directing Gates with those ghostly orgasms in _Sub Rosa_. He's still amazed that they got away with that one on prime time television.

All joking aside, he does respect _Star Trek_. How could he not love something that has given him so much over the years?

Now he's in London, somewhere in the West End, at another _Star Trek_ convention. Creation, of course. It could be anywhere in the world: same hotel, same vendors, same fans. It could be almost any time in the past twenty years, come to think of it. Has it really been that long?

(A look in the mirror is enough to convince him that it has.)

It's the middle of summer, and really he'd rather be fishing in Maine. There's only one reason he agreed to do the convention and it wasn't the money, which he doesn't need. It was the chance to spend a couple of days hanging around in the same hotel as Brent and Marina.

Brent he's crossed paths with here and there but Marina is living in London these days and he really hasn't seen her for ages.

She's not due at the convention till tomorrow anyway. Today he's onstage with Brent, reminiscing, talking about _Thunderbirds_ , telling all the usual self-deprecating stories that always get a laugh.

"I saw Wil Wheaton a while back," he says. "And this is what he said to me: _back when we started filming TNG, I was fifteen and you were thirty-five, and you were so cool! And now I'm thirty-five, and you..._ "

He trails off, delicately, just at the punch line, and gets exactly the laugh that he was hoping for. There's an art to conventions, just like any other kind of stagecraft. To call it acting might be too strong, but then again it might not. He's playing himself, an affable genial host, the perfect straight man to Brent's acerbic commentary.

During questions, while Brent is bantering with yet another member of the audience, he glances away for just a moment. And there, silhouetted in the doorway at the side of the stage, he sees Marina standing and watching them, a fond smile on her lips. He waves, discreetly, and turns back to the audience.

The applause at the end is thunderous. It always is. Marina joins them onstage to wave to the crowd.

"What are you doing here?" he says in an undertone, still smiling in a sea of flashbulbs. "I thought you weren't on until tomorrow."

"I'm not," she says simply. "But you're only here over the weekend, aren't you?"

Marina is, as they would say on this side of the pond, a star. In more ways than one. Who else would hang around a fan convention, unpaid, just to spend a couple of hours with a couple of aging actors that she acted with in an SF series nearly two decades ago? Who but a member of the TNG cast?

He's proud to be a member of that select society. And he couldn't be happier to see Marina.

"We'll go for a drink," he says. "But first I've got to sign autographs."

She nods, puts her arm familiarly around his waist for one more picture. "I know. What do you think I'm here for? You don't mind the company, do you?"

"I'll endure it somehow," he says, grinning now.

The ever-present minders lead him out into the hallway, Marina in tow. There is the folding table, there are the folding chairs (they bring an extra one for Marina). There is the stack of 8-by-10 color glossy photos that remind him what he looked like back when he was thirty-five and could still get away—just—with wearing spandex.

"I even brought you a pen," says Marina.

"Any chance of coffee and a doughnut to go with it?"

She raises an eyebrow. "What about your diet? What would Genie say?"

And she's right of course.

Not only does he have the best wife in the world, he has a best friend who is like a sister to both of them. What more could a man want? Apart from doughnuts, that is.

Fans are lining up now, carrying with their own merchandise ready to be signed, wearing their T-shirts, clutching bags from the dealers room. Some of them are older than him; some are kids who weren't even born when TNG first aired. He never fails to be awed and humbled by the fact that people will stand in line for hours just for an autograph and a few warm words with a man who, after all, only played Commander Will Riker on television.

He knows—he reminds himself, whenever his hand starts to cramp up or his back aches from sitting too long in a flimsy chair—that the warm words are the important part. Or sometimes just the chance to tell their own stories. They've taken the time to listen to his, after all. And together they've all shared in the adventure that was TNG.

He and Marina chat and banter—with the fans, with one another. As the afternoon wears on he starts to think that maybe they're having too much fun, that he'd do this even if they didn't pay him. What could be better than spending the afternoon with an old friend, reminiscing and arguing about the Arsenal match?

A fan comes to the front of the line, proffering a group publicity shot from all the way back in the first season. There they all are; and what a long, strange trip it's been. He was clean-shaven in those days, cleft-chinned and painfully earnest. Wil looked about twelve, wearing one of those awful sweaters that they used to put Wesley in. And Marina...

He thrusts the picture towards her. 

"Look at that," he says. "Where did that come from? Do you remember that bun?"

"Oh God," she says, "I don't want to, but you know I do."

And all three of them are laughing, he and Marina and the fan all together, and life is very good.


End file.
